Build a Business Website

If you want to build a business website, you’ll need:

1. A Keyword Domain Name – the web address/url for your web site
2. A Web Host – a place to put your site on the internet
3. A Professional Email Address – an email address at your domain.  This can be set up through your web hosting account.
4. A Web Site – an eCommerce site, a blog style site, a static style site or a web application
5. A Way to Drive Traffic to Your Site – offline and/or internet marketing

Web Hosting

Web hosting is a service which allows you to upload and store your web site pages, documents and related files on a web server (computers which contain the web hosting space where your web pages are stored.)  This makes the files (web pages) available for public viewing on the Internet.

The web hosting plan you choose will depend on your technology, marketing and customer service needs.

Preferred Web Host – Unless you know you’re going to need multiple web sites, a toll-free business phone number, private ssl, or anonymous ftp, then you should start out with the basic (“Hatchling”) plan.

Setting Up Your Email Account

The web hosting plan you purchased should’ve come with at least one email address that uses the domain name you purchased for your web site.  After you have your new email address set up at your web host (or other email provider), you then need to set up an email account within the email software on your computer to receive the incoming email.

If you didn’t set up your new email address with your web host or email host, then you need to contact the person who did because you’ll need some information from them before you can set up the email account on your computer.

Many people use either Microsoft Outlook Express (which is free with the Internet Explorer browser) or the Microsoft Office Outlook software which comes bundled with the Microsoft Office suite of software.  A great, free email software alternative is Mozilla Thunderbird.  It’s an add-on to the Firefox Browser and it’s very similar to Microsoft Outlook.  Thunderbird includes an email client, a calendar, a task list, an rss feed reader, and it even does IMAP.

Other Logistics

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
FTP is a way of transferring files over the Internet from one computer to another and comes in very handy when you have large size files and/or several files and it’s impossible or tedious to send them via email.  This is a great way to get your existing digital photo files, pdf files, brochures, etc to your web developer to use as content on your web site.
Accessing an FTP Directory

Unless the ftp location/address you were given is “anonymous”, then you’ll need to get a login name and password for this ftp location.  Many publicly accessible ftp directories have anonymous login, but when you are transferring files with a private business, you’ll likely need to get ftp login information from them before you will be able to gain access to their ftp directory.

FTP Software

You can ftp right from the URL address field in your web browser (note, this may not work with Internet Explorer on a Mac platform.)

Even better:  install the free FTP software ‘Fillezilla‘